The social and political determinants of support for democratic innovations in France

Catégorie : Chapitre d'ouvrage

Auteur(s) : Camille Bedock

Éditeur : Springer

Année de publication : 2025


Résumé :

Many pundits, politicians, journalists or experts argue that deepening participation is the solution to the crisis of representative democracy in France. Democratic innovations are mechanisms aiming at expanding citizens' participation in political decision-making. However, behind this umbrella concept, democratic innovations come in various forms and shapes: citizen-initiated referendums, abrogative referendums, recall, consultative or binding deliberative mini-publics, etc. Some complement representative democracy whereas others contest directly its logic. This chapter will analyze the political and social determinants of support for two democratic innovations that challenge the traditional elective form of political representation: citizen-initiated referendums, and citizens' assemblies replacing elected representatives to take political decisions, relying on descriptive statistics and regression analyses. We build on the fast-growing literature on process preferences such as direct democratic procedures or randomly selected citizens assemblies. This chapter corroborates other findings and confirms that individuals who are the losers of representative democracy, because they are poorly represented politically, descriptively and substantively are also the most likely to support radical reforms that challenge the core logic of the French political system.


Référence HAL : hal-04762714

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